How to Survive South Park

The End of an Era Part 1

Exalted Agent - Toolshed's POV:

'I have to do this.' I tell myself for the umpteenth time.

After getting yet another report about what he's doing... after waking up from yet another nightmare where he's the star of the show.

'I have to do this.'

Every time, my world would be burning. Every time, I would see my worst fears come to life.

The smell of bodies, both raw and cooked, would make my head ache.

But that wasn't nearly as bad as actually seeing the bodies all around me.

And that didn't hold a candle to seeing my best friend on my left with his lower half missing and my girlfriend to my right with more blood outside of her than inside of her.

Before it all... in the midst of the pool of blood surrounded by raging flames that silhouetted us... someone else stood among the aftermath.

Or rather... something.

Something I couldn't even begin to call human.

By no means did it feel like one.

I'd say it was alien, but that would be an insult to aliens. I'd say it was an unnatural beast, but that would be an insult to guys like Scuzzlebutt and ManBearPig.

Up on two legs, its body was a mix of muscly and spindly, a combination of brute strength and deadly agility. Its posture was slightly hunched so its head was leveled with its shoulders.

Anything else was tough to make out past the coat of various tendrils that warped around the monster's body, like a cape of snakes (I never really did get over that fear for mine either, making it that much worse), half of which had some amount of flesh snagged on the hooked, spiked tentacles.

They faced halfway from me, their gaze instead drawn by the wall of flame.. But it would soon slowly turn towards myself for the big reveal.

Originally, in nightmares like this, the monster would be myself. It would be my fears of losing control of Trapper Keeper and dooming my friends, my family, and my world as a result.

But now... now, before the nightmare ends, I see soulless black eyes with brimming purple pupils glowing back at me.

'I absolutely fucking have to do this.'

"Absolutely fucking NOT, Stanley!" My girlfriend shuts my plan down with no room for argument. "Have you forgotten about what happened to Kyle when he tried fighting that guy?

Dovah is obviously gonna crash that gathering, and even if the people there are smart enough to realize that too and set up an ambush, said ambush isn't going to do jack shit!"

I know she's right, but what other choice do I have?

"Wendy, Dovah will come here too eventually. I was the one who got him locked up; I was the one who got his best friend brainwashed and killed. If he's willing to completely annihilate the Time Patrol for what they did, just imagine what else he'll want to do with me after what he did with my Planetary Trapper Keeper.

I can't let him drag you and the rest of our world into this; what happened was my fuckup and I need to pay for it."

I can't let those nightmares come true.

Wendy breaks down at this. She sobs and begs me not to go and throw my life away like that, but again, what other choice do I have?